


Stake My Life On It

by adverbally, PhryneFicathon



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Breaking and Entering, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Minor Injuries, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-10-07 18:42:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17371289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adverbally/pseuds/adverbally, https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhryneFicathon/pseuds/PhryneFicathon
Summary: Jack and Phryne’s clandestine investigation of a murder in a bakery leads to a close call that brings them closer together.





	Stake My Life On It

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whopooh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whopooh/gifts).



> This was originally supposed to be a full-fledged case fic with subplots and multiple suspects and everything! Unfortunately, that shit is hard to write and graduate school is crazy, so that’s a story for another time. However, in the course of plotting that case, I realized that I have never really whumped Jack and let Phryne suffer the consequences, and this prompt gave me the super fun opportunity to do that. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!  
> I’m so grateful to cogsandsprings for betaing and to Fire_Sign for her patience in providing me not one but two extensions when finals got too overwhelming. Thank you both for all of your hard work!
> 
> Prompt: “Either Phryne or Jack (not yet fully in a relationship) is injured in the course of an investigation. It turns out to be little more than a graze (or similar minor injury), but that doesn't stop the emotions coming to the forefront. Fear? Anger? An ill-advised urge to protect?”

“Floyd Barton didn’t seem very pleased to have the police snooping around his wife’s bakery,” Phryne remarked, crossing one leg over the other as she made herself comfortable in one of Jack’s office chairs. 

“No,” Jack agreed from the other side of his desk, “but that doesn’t mean he’s a murderer. He’s well within his rights to refuse to answer questions without a lawyer present. I can’t assume someone is suspicious because they know the law.”

“You can if they’re as unpleasant as Mr. Barton is. I’m sure you noticed how Cora reacted to his arrival.” She peered at him over the top of their current case file, though it didn’t contain much information she hadn’t already learned at the crime scene. It certainly didn’t contain the memory of how Mrs. Barton had flinched away from her husband’s possessive arm as he all but herded the detectives out of the kitchen. She hoped he could at least be charged with obstructing the investigation if it turned out he wasn’t the murderer. 

Jack sat back in his desk chair and steepled his fingers. “I did, but again, unpleasantness is not grounds for arrest.”

Phryne tilted her head. “So we’ll just have to find something that __is__ grounds for arrest. Say, around midnight tonight?” She blinked as the pitch of her voice rose innocently. 

“That’s an odd time for a police investigation,” Jack said dryly.

Really, Jack could be so frustrating when he was being purposefully obtuse. Phryne tapped her finger against the manilla folder impatiently. “You know that Barton won’t willingly let us within one hundred meters of that shop, especially if he knows there might be proof that he was at the scene of the crime,” she argued. “But what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

Jack sighed, letting his head fall back to rest on the edge of his chair before meeting her gaze once more. “We aren’t even completely sure that there is a crime at all. Until the coroner can get us a cause of death, we have nothing to work with.”

“And our baker just __happened__ to be testing a new recipe for rhubarb friands on the same day that her healthy young shophand mysteriously dropped dead?”

“I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that a pastry can contain almonds for reasons other than covering up the taste of cyanide!” Jack exclaimed in frustration. “And if her ‘healthy young shophand’ was actually poisoned, that’s a hell of a lot more damning for Cora Barton than it is for her husband, since he wasn’t even in the shop.”

Phryne dropped the file onto Jack’s desk and crossed her arms. “So he says. That’s assuming his alibi holds up and the scene doesn’t show otherwise, and we won’t know either of those things without another look at that bakery. Hence the need for more… unorthodox investigating,” she said delicately.

Jack shook his head. “You saw how hostile he was when he saw us earlier. I can’t imagine that he would be more forgiving of two strangers trespassing on his property in the middle of the night.”

“That’s just it, Jack! We were barely able to get anything from the scene this morning because of him, and now you’re going to let him set us back even further.” Phryne jabbed a finger at the file. “Virginia Hughes deserves better than this. We can’t let a bully like Floyd Burton get in the way of justice.” 

Jack’s fist flexed, a reflex that stemmed from his urge to rake his hand through his neatly pomaded hair. It was a gesture Phryne had become familiar with over the course of their acquaintance; the more she exasperated him, and the closer she got to getting her way, the more frequently he did it. It was just a matter of waiting him out now.

After a long moment, he nodded slowly, his hand relaxing as he reached out to slide the case file to his side of the desk. “All right, Miss Fisher. Tonight at midnight. We’ll meet in front of the tailor’s down the street from the bakery. And please try not to draw too much attention to yourself.”

Phryne smiled, though she was careful to keep the expression tamed. It wouldn’t do to gloat. “I’ll try, but I can’t make any promises.” She rose gracefully from her seat, scooping up her handbag and hat, and crossed the room only to pause halfway to Jack’s office door. “Telephone me if you get the coroner’s report before tonight. It would be helpful to know for certain that there is a murder for us to investigate,” she conceded.

“Good afternoon, Miss Fisher,” Jack responded, already returning to the stack of paperwork at the corner of his desk. 

Phryne walked out of City South with a little more sway in her hips than she had when she walked in. She knew he would phone later, whether he agreed to her terms or not. 

_________________________

An investigation like this required all of Phryne’s usual precautions-- parking around the block, wearing her trusty black coat and beret, squeezing her gun and extra ammunition into her handbag, and hoping her lowest heels would be low enough to allow her a quick exit if it became necessary. She felt very prepared by the time she rounded the corner to find Jack already waiting in front of the tailor’s shop, standing in the shadowed doorway so he would be less visible from the street.

“Miss Fisher,” he greeted her. “I hope you realize your breaking-and-entering uniform won’t be necessary. You’re authorized to search the scene with a police escort.”

“Oh, will he be joining us?” Phryne made a show of looking up and down the quiet street.

Jack frowned, though amusement shone in his eyes. “Very funny. Shall we?”

Phryne took his proffered arm gratefully, stepping closer to ward off the chill of the autumn night. It was a short walk to the bakery, made shorter by the gusty wind whipping their coats around their calves and spurring them to walk faster. They reached the front door quickly, where Phryne turned expectantly to Jack.

“Will you be needing my lockpicks?” 

He produced a bronze key from his inner coat pocket with a flourish. “Luckily, Mrs. Burton was more cooperative than her husband.” He easily slid the key into place, and the door was mercifully silent as it swung open.

Jack and Phryne stepped inside slowly, cautious of creaky floorboards and obstacles that might be obscured in the darkness of the shop. The bakery opened on a small seating area, with mismatched tables and chairs clustered around the front windows. A long counter spanned the length of the room, with glass display cases sitting empty in anticipation of the morning’s baking. Though the tempting scents of breads and sweet pastries still lingered in the small shop, everything appeared to have been wiped down at the end of the day, much to the detectives’ chagrin. 

“Damn, they’ve cleaned out the cases,” Phryne whispered. “There goes half our evidence.”

“Virginia wouldn’t have eaten from the cases, she had to keep them stocked for the customers. Any samples she took would have been straight from the kitchen,” Jack deduced. 

Phryne peered over the counter to where a set of double doors indicated the entrance to the kitchen. “Shall we start there, then? They may have kept some of the day’s leftovers.”

At Jack’s nod, they moved in unison, passing through the swinging half-gate at the end of the counter that would grant them access to the back of the shop. Phryne found herself walking more slowly, almost reverently, over the spot behind the counter where Virginia Hughes’ body had lain only hours before. It was even more haunting now that the coroner had confirmed that her death had been due to foul play. 

Matching her more sedate pace, Jack silently fell into step behind her, as he had become so adept at doing. It still pleased Phryne that it felt so natural to work so closely with Jack, though he had long since proven himself to be a dependable ally; from spying on smugglers on the pier in Queenscliff to awaiting the theft of her Colombian emeralds from the closet of Phryne’s own home, her nocturnal investigations with Jack had proven to be far more enjoyable than any detecting efforts she undertook alone. She had a new appreciation for their partnership in the wake of the Gerty Haynes case, though she was less appreciative of the peculiar ache that tended to settle behind her breastbone at the memory of how wretched Jack had looked that evening in her parlor. Phryne much preferred to think of him as he was now-- with the hat and coat that seemed to be part of him, his eyes alert and thoughtful in the darkness as he did his job with frightening competence.

She was about to test that competence by pushing open the double doors into the kitchen when the faint clang of metal on metal rang out from the next room. Her head jerked to meet Jack’s gaze. “Did you hear that?”

He nodded grimly, mirroring her stance at the doors so they were both prepared to ambush whomever awaited them on the other side if the need arose. 

“What if it’s Barton destroying more evidence?” Phryne hissed. “We can’t just stay here.”

“We don’t even know if it’s him,” Jack reasoned. “Even if it is, it’s too dangerous to try to surprise him. He could be armed.”

Phryne rolled her eyes in exasperation. “I __am__ armed, Jack, and I can’t let him get away with this again.” She stood on her toes, twisting to look through the round windows at the top of the doors, but the kitchen was just as dark as the front of the store and only the large looming shadows of the ovens and shelves were visible in the blackness. “Damn it,” she muttered to herself. Going in blind was far from ideal, but time was of the essence. 

Something of her determination must have shown in her face because Jack stiffened beside her, reaching out for her arm as he warned, “Phryne,” in a low, urgent voice.

Phryne shrugged him off and drew her gun from her handbag in one smooth movement. Then she took a deep breath, shoved the door open with her shoulder, and darted into the kitchen, leaving Jack cursing and scrambling to follow her. 

The main aisle of the kitchen, lined with cooling racks and countertops for preparing dough, was blessedly empty, though Phryne’s aim never wavered as she swept the room with her gun held before her. The wall to her left featured the industrial ovens needed to produce large enough batches for the bakery’s demand, while the opposite wall held an oversized sink and shelf after shelf of raw ingredients. The walkway in front of Phryne ended in a door to the alley behind the building, where the staircase to the upstairs apartment was located. Just like the front room, the kitchen had been cleaned up after a long day of baking, and everything was neatly put away for the next day’s work. 

“Phryne, there’s nothing here,” Jack whispered. “Barton must have already gotten rid of everything.”

Slowly, Phryne lowered her gun, looking over the room once more. She hated to admit defeat, but any evidence that might have still been in the bakery was well-hidden enough that they were more likely to get caught than to find anything useful. They would have to wait until the police could justify a warrant to search the bakery and the apartment upstairs. She let out a huff of frustration.

“We need to leave,” Jack continued from behind her. “If someone heard--” He suddenly cut himself off with a choked shout.

Phryne whirled around just in time to see Jack stumble hip-first into the counter, his hands clapped to his face. From the other side of the counter, on the next aisle of the kitchen, a dark figure was already running for the door to the alley.

To her horror, Phryne froze. It was like being back in the war where the urges of fight or flight warred against each other until she couldn’t do much of either, where she could only stare in horror as men clutched at limbs that weren’t there anymore and choked on mustard gas right in front of her. Then, just as it had back then, her training kicked in and she rushed to Jack’s side, helping him sink to the ground and crouching beside him.

“Jack, are you all right?” she asked automatically, her hands hovering over his where they clutched at his face. When he didn’t respond, Phryne couldn’t help imagining the damage that might lie beneath. Heaven knew she had enough experience in worst-case scenarios that her mind jumped to the most dreadful possibilities, but there was nothing to be done until she could see for herself. “Jack, darling, I need you to move your hands,” she instructed, trying to keep her voice calm.

With a weak cough, he did as she asked, scrunching his eyes shut against the powder that Phryne could now see coating his face. Her sigh of relief was audible. Jack wasn’t bleeding and he was responding to her commands. That would do for now. 

“Sorry, I’m fine. I think it’s just flour.” He coughed again, trying to clear his throat. “Not a bad tactic, if I’m honest.” 

Phryne sat back on her heels and tugged the scarf from around her neck. She used one end of the silk to wipe at Jack’s eyes, clearing them of the flour as carefully as she could in the darkness of the kitchen. “Is that better?” she asked quietly.

Jack blinked open his eyes slowly, testing to make sure his vision would be clear. The motion made his eyelashes, highlighted with lingering streaks of white powder, look impossibly long. “Much better.” 

“Stay still,” Phryne warned. She turned the scarf on him again, brushing it over his brow before sweeping it across each cheek, down his chin, and along his jaw. She was so engaged in the task that it took her a moment to realize that her hand was shaking, though not before Jack noticed as well.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice still gravelly from the flour he inhaled.

She nodded. “Adrenaline,” she explained with a shrug and a smile. 

Jack would attribute it to the tension of the break-in and his potential injury, though Phryne suspected it had more to do with the warmth of his skin, the rasp of silk in her hands, and the trusting way he tilted his head up to her and shut his eyes against her touch. It felt too much like being back in his office, knotting his tie around his neck, being so close to __something__ before Sanderson had interrupted them. Now here they were, alone in the dark, bodies pressed thigh to thigh as her heart pounded in her chest out of residual fear and relief and something she didn’t dare try to name, and all she could think to tell him was a ridiculous excuse about adrenaline. If only Jack knew.

Rather than wait for him to comment, Phryne rose from her crouch and offered him a hand up. “Come on, we really have to get out of here after all of that ruckus.”

Jack took her hand gratefully and stood with a quiet groan. “How should we make our escape?”

Phryne thought for a moment. “I wouldn’t suggest the rear exit. It seems like bad luck to follow your attacker out of the building.”

“The front door it is, then,” Jack conceded with a sigh.

They left the bakery somewhat less stealthily than they had entered it, figuring that the shouting and clanging had already drawn as much attention as they were likely to get at this time of night, but they didn’t linger. The weather had worsened, with great dark clouds adding to the bitter wind to suggest a storm would be brewing by morning. Under such a portent, the walk between the bakery and the tailor’s block went even more quickly than it had earlier. 

Jack, unsurprisingly, insisted on walking Phryne around the corner to where she had parked the Hispano-Suiza, even going so far as to open her door and help her into the vehicle. Phryne half-wondered why he was being so formal until he cleared his throat and said, looking at the sidewalk, “I’m sure you had more important business to attend/ to this evening than failed surveillance, but I’m glad you were here.” 

“Oh, Jack. You are important.” She smiled at him and turned the key in the ignition. “And I will gladly save you from flour attacks any time.”

“What a relief,” Jack returned with a smile of his own. “Drive safely, Miss Fisher.” With a tap on the side of her motorcar, he turned to continue up the block to where his own was parked. 

If Phryne watched him in her rearview mirror the whole way, nobody else would need to know. 


End file.
